A Cherry Picker of Olympic Proportions

Date:

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Cherry pickers get all the glamorous jobs, eh? Just a few days into the London Olympics, organisers decided the cauldron needed to be moved to a new location within the main stadium, so it had to be extinguished temporarily. Once in its new position, two-time Olympic Torch bearer, Austin Playfoot was taken up in a cherry picker to relight the main flame. Playfoot has had the honour of carrying the flame in both the 1948 and 2012 London Olympics, as well as possibly the novel experience of riding a cherry picker in the Olympic stadium!

Despite being put out, the Olympic flame is never fully extinguished during the games – instead it is kept alight in a separate lantern, even when making its way to the Olympic stadium. The relay flame blew out on its way through Devon on the third day in Britain due to a malfunctioning torch.

We hope the cherry picker operator enjoyed his Olympic moment – what a job! Cherry pickers are often used for events, music videos, filming TV, sporting events and movies, and to help with setting up electrics, lighting and theatre rigging. Their aerial reach means they could provide an ideal viewpoint for television cameras and photographers to capture every historic moment of this year’s Olympic games in London – as well as allowing for relighting Olympic fire!